


Three Things About John Winchester

by MistressKat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Meme, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-31
Updated: 2010-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressKat/pseuds/MistressKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title says it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Things About John Winchester

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pushkin666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushkin666/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Три пункта о Джоне Винчестере](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966239) by [Rassda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rassda/pseuds/Rassda)



> Written as an answer to the _"Name a character and I'll tell you three (or more) facts about them, from my own personal pseudo-canon"_ meme on LJ.

**1\. **John Winchester never killed a man.

The first time he held a gun was when he joined the Core. He was seventeen when his country handed him a M-40 sniper rifle and taught him to kill. He did it so well that they gave him a piece of metal for his chest, presumably to replace the one the doctor dug out of his shoulder. 

After he got out, John locked away the medals and the gun, which he kept just in case but never really expected to use again. That wasn’t the first thing he got wrong in his life. Or the last.

There were a lot of kills over the years. John used shotguns and handguns and rifles, throw knives and hunting knives and small switchblades that folded neatly into his boot. He killed ghosts with salt and fire, demons with holy water and Latin, hunted down all manner of dark creatures with nothing but a crossbow and two young boys at his back. 

Some of the things John killed wore a human face, screamed with a human voice, but they weren’t human. Not really, or not anymore.

They were like the enemies John killed in the Nam, like the people at his side, like himself; men but not men, tools of war stripped bare and hollowed out.

 

 

**2.** Mary wasn’t the first person John Winchester was in love with, but she was the last. Sometimes he thinks he lost the ability for all flavours of love with her death. At the very least it changed; turning into a dark and different thing. It was like looking at his own familiar face on one of those funhouse mirrors and seeing something twisted and ugly staring back. 

He looks at his boys, his babies, and sees soldiers. What used to be pure, is now tainted with duty and sacrifice, endless roads and too much blood.

Part of him is glad when Sam leaves; perhaps it’s for the best, perhaps he _is_ something to run away from. Dean is another matter though. He stays no matter how much John pushes, so in the end he does what every responsible parent should do: tries to make sure his children are as safe as he can make them. 

John is honest enough to admit that by the time he disappears it’s not just the Demon he needs to protect them from; it’s him too.

 

 

**3.** John fucking _hates_ the afterlife. He’s always believed in Hell, but not in Heaven, and so far all his experiences have proven him right on both accounts. As bad as Hell was – his mind slides around the details like a skater circling a hole in the ice, keeping the gash of dark bottomless water in his periphery but refusing to look at it directly – it was still preferable to this obscure _nothingness_ he finds himself in now. Everything is _less_ than it was before; a colourless, weightless, timeless existence without end or purpose.  He can see glimpses of the world, clinging to the edges like a memory, but he can’t interact with it. 

Perhaps he never crawled out at all, and this is just another version of Hell. Or maybe it’s a test that he failed, a judgement forever pending, a Boatman always beyond the horizon.

Sometimes he hears Mary’s voice, calling for him, but it’s a trick, it must be. After all, John Winchester doesn’t believe in Heaven.


End file.
